I'm starting a new thread because I would like to focus on the new stage in my R. For the last 4 months H and I have been spending every night together. H pretty much lives at my place. In sept. I needed to let my landlord know if I planned to renew my lease for another year or not. I approached H about it and we both (kind of) decided that we would let it turn over again because we weren't ready to move back in with each other.
For the past month and a half my H has been talking a lot about moving back in together. I have let him know a couple of times that I am just not ready yet. I let him know that I was very, very happy with how far we have come but I needed to see that the changes we have made are premamnent. Two weeks ago we sat down and made lists of what was considered a necessity and what was highly important and what would be desireable in our R. I used that as an occasion to let him know that at the heart of it I NEED honesty, compassion, and respect in my R for it to work and it was his responsibility to figure out what exactly that meant to me. and I was to do the same with his needs.
I found a place online the other day that sounds absolutely AMAZING! I had to check it out. I asked H if he would like to see it and let him know that I was just checking to see what is available to us as we begin to work towards living together again. H agreed and then after reading the description started talking as if we would move into this place.
I put the brakes on (one- I'm still not ready and have made that clear to H and two- I'm in a legal contract which I can't break w/out serious reprocussions.). H got upset and said "Fine. I'll move in and you can move in in 2 or 3 years whenever you are ready." I tried very hard not to react to this snide comment of his and stared at him and said "Babe, it's not a matter of me wanting to move in with you or not. I do want to live with you again but the reality of my situation is this." He went on to say that his life wasn't going to be ruled by anything like a lease, etc, etc...
I thought about it the next day and did some research. Basically my options are to sublet or to try an assign my lease back to my landlord. Breaking my lease is not an option because I could be sued and and it would go on my credit report.
The whole exchange the night before is exactly what I need H to pay attention to. That is respect for my situation and my feelings. He's being immature about this and it makes me want to put the breaks on even more. That and it makes me very down about my R. When this happens, I think that H should leave me and be with OW, herself very immature, or someone who lets H do whatever he wants.
Last night I told H that I had spoken with a lawyer at my work and they advised me of my options. I said to him again that this is what I am dealing with. I asked him what his concerns or fears are and he said that he is tired of being compromised in our R. He's afraid that my situation will drag on and it will be a very long time before we can move in with each other. I said that I couldn't look at it that way. I reminded him that we ARE living together and that I look at this as even more time to work on our R.
He also said that he was frightened that I didn't want to live with him again. I said that's not the case. He said, but you are not ready to live with me and I don't know how long this is going to take. I paused, ready to fall into the habit of lying and saying otherwise, but I couldn't. I said "you're right. I'm not ready to move back in with you." "I'm afraid of falling into old patterns with you and to be taken for granted again." I told him that this is the most important R to me and I don't want to push things simply because we were impatient. I said that this wasn't some bulls**t, "easy" R (nasty dig at OW, who H described as being an "easy" friendship). "This is the real deal and I plan on being with you for a long, long time.
Ok, enough for now. I have to go to the office Christmas party.
H and I checked out an apartment this weekend. The place was great, the landlords are around our age. H and I both loved it! However, move in date is set for 1/1/06 and the husband landlord is allergic to cats.
But it was good for us to look. We're still planning on talking to them tonight to see if they would be willing to rent it 2/1 instead and if the cat issue is a done deal. If we can't get this place it's not as if there won't be others. H and I even discussed the option of him releasing his apt and putting his stuff into storage. That way we would save $$ and we would only have one place that we would need to get rid of.
On my end, I have made it clear to H that I am willing to consider moving back in with him if we continue to work on our issues, both as a couple and as individuals. I have been weighing my hesitation for moving back in together. I've come to the conclusion that given all that we have worked through and what we continue to show each other, waiting doesn't have to be my only option for guaranteeing that things stay the same. In fact there is not guarantee that things will stay the same as they have been whether we continue our living situation as is or move in together.
I need to give myself the time to think about what I need to have in place to be able to continue our and my work. H knows very clearly that if things return to the way that they were that I am gone. I need to work to make sure that on my end it doesn't happen. For me that means being very committed to my therapy and working my al-anon program and of course continued DBing. It has been said a number of times on this site that you don't stop dbing once you reach your goals but that you DB for the rest of your life. It's like when you diet. You don't go back to eating the way that you did before the diet once you have lost the weight. You need to maintain the good eating habits for the rest of your life.
So, the options I am looking at for moving back in very much include how this will affect my recovery. H and I are beginning to establish some very healthy patterns in our R. My focus is on maintaining those and addressing the other issues as they come along.
Just wanted to put in my 2c on the sarcasm from H - it could be the way he masks his fear. From his perspective, you are hesitant about moving back together, and he has no control over the situation. Either bawl his eyes out or be sarcastic. Good job in pretty much taking it in your stride.
Thank you for checking in! Mostly my concerns are about falling into old patterns or that we are too stuck in our ways to significantly change. H and I both have intimacy issues and we are also very intense people. Great combo, huh? Anyway, my fear is that H doesn't have the motivation to become more intimate and that I enable him not changing! I DO NOT want a life for myself where I am giving and giving and H only meets me halfway. Problem is I am deeply in love with H and it's my nature to want to give a lot.
What I need to work on is being able to understand where the boundary that giving because it benefits the R ends and the giving because I'm using it as a way to not deal with my own issues begins. This, I feel somedays, is impossible to determine and that either you luck into the winning combo with your partner or you don't.
Today is a good example. H has been burned out the last couple of days because of how much he hates his job. So when he is burned out he isn't very communicative or he is short or he is "distant". This last one is the killer for me. I have an extremely difficult time dealing with this. His distance is so under the radar that when I ask him what is wrong and he says "nothing." it seems as if I am crazy. Yet when I do the same thing he gets all bent out of shape and calls me a liar, which I am at that point.
My work with al-anon has been helping with this. At least I am no longer devastated when this occurs. I'm looking into making a stronger commitment to the program and actually working the steps instead of just gleaning from the rest of the group.
So going back to the whole job thing, H hates his but hasn't been that proactive to change. He has applied to several places around the country but didn't get any responses. Big surprise! It's hard enough to get a job in your area let alone opening yourself up to a larger market. Then two weeks ago, I found a job online, in our area, that H is perfect for! AND it's dealing with a subject that he adores! I forwarded the job to him and he expressed some interest. I told myself that I would let it go from there. But my nature got the best of me and I talked to him about it and encouraged him and asked a couple of times if he had applied. Finally last week he did and low and behold with two hours of submitting his stuff he gets a call for an interview!
So he gets excited, puts a portfolio together and talks about how good it would be to turn in his letter of resignation. Then the last two days he was preoccupied with the stress of his current job and also contemplating what this new job might bring. I was open to talking about the latter but there's really nothing to say about the old job. At this point, it's s**t or get off the pot! Here is a great opportunity for you to move forward. Your current job s**ks and you know it. I'll relax with you on those evenings, I'll keep the stress low on my end as well but no more distancing because of old job stress.
Today was rough for me because I want to be able to be there for H but I'm finding it hard to move past my frustrations with him. It also didn't help that he brought over a scarf that I'm convinced OW knitted for him. I think I'm going to tell him that it looks ugly on him so that he won't wear it around me.
I'm also concerned that I have been unable to healthfully release my anger with my H about things like OW. Intellectually, I know that she is a symptom of H's intimacy and self-esteem issues. But that doesn't do anything for the anger that I still carry around. I'm afraid that it is beginning to affect my physically. I missed my period last month and it looks like it will happen again this month as well. And no, it's not because I am pregnant.
You see, my H has never admitted to anything between he and OW. It's always been "just friends" even though it is so obvious that was not the case. Talking about OW and all that she encompasses has been an exercise in extreme tact and strategy. I'm still holding on to a lot of my fears with this as well.
But I can't ignore all the good changes that have occured. It's also necessary for both H and I to move away from absolutes in our R. I can't want to leave H everytime I am reminded of OW or when we are distant from each other.
So, I think that about covers it. I'm still trying to make sense of the mess that is my head most days. Today, I'm going to get a hug from a dear friend that I rarely see these days. Tomorrow, I am taking a yoga class, something I haven't done in over a year and a half!
Thanks again for checking in. I'm off the board until 12/27. Then I'm back to work! Have a great Christmas and Boxing Day!
I had a very low-key holiday which was what I totally needed. H and I spent alot of time together. We didn't do very much which was fine. We both needed to be lazy.
On Friday, I was in a very weird frame of mind. H and I spent Thursday together and then H went back to work on Friday while I stayed home. For some reason, I became very despondent that although H was the most important R in my life, I was not his. Or at least I was attributing this belief to the fact that because he has a online profile where he doesn't state his marital status. That was pretty much the reason why! Irrational, I know, but not totally given all that occured last year with his ff. However, with all of the changes that have occured btwn us my pityfest on Friday was out of proportion. I used it however to examine my own issues. I'm finding that many of the "problems" I have with H and our R actually trace back to me and issues that I have with myself.
I realized on Friday that this mentality no longer worked for me. I do know that I am the most important R in my H's life and that things like his FF and online activities are not an indication of him undervaluing me at all. In fact, they are his weaknesses related solely to him. I mean honestly, what is he going to do? Walk around wearing a t-shirt that says "I Love My Wife, M..."?! He does show me how important I am and he tells me! I absolutely need to redirect this struggle back to changing myself for myself. It's hard not to be led astray by our emotions but I believe that obstacles,struggles, whathaveyou are there for us to learn from. I've been getting stuck on the "I need to be the absolute center of someone's life" for a long, long time. It needs to end.
That night I was acting strangely because all of this was still on my mind. H finally got it out of me that I was trying to work something through. He went out and came back shortly before midnight (he let me know he was hanging out with friends that I have met). He was excited to see me but I was acting pretty immaturely. I barely had anything to say and when he went to go to the bathroom, I had turned off all of the lights and was in bed. He was confused and pissed and we got into a dumb argument about what was going on. He asked me to just be clear with him and that he would be fine with my response. I told him that hasn't always been the case and I'm still not sure that this approach would work. He agreed and asked me to just try. After about 10 minutes of this we fell asleep. We apologized to each other the next morning for getting angry and I told him that I needed to think things through a little longer before telling him (in the past he's gotten nasty frustrated when I talk about very complicated things before thinking them through). So we went about our day.
Our Christmas was great. We both agreed that this year was the complete antithesis of last year and that we were very happy to have made these necessary changes in our R. I spent some time meditating on gratitude for the growth that has occured in my life and in my R. For me that is hard to accept when I fixate on all that still needs working on.
Later on I told H about what I was working through and how I realize that I was asking the impossible of him by being the center of his universe. I also told him that I need to continue working on myself and that his patience with this process has been a great support. He thanked me for sharing this with him.
H had called his landlord to let him know that he will be moving out of his apt. The landlord offered to let H and I rent two apts (converting them into one) for a ridiculously low price! It's a very sweet gesture, he's a great landlord but I asked H if I could think about the offer before we agreed to anything. Later this weekend I told H that I wasn't interested because I wanted to live somewhere new, somewhere that didn't remind me of this past year. H agreed and said that he was thinking the exact same thing.
Things are moving along and I think at a pace that H and I are both comfortable with. I'm finding that I don't have the energy or the interest to push things like I normally do. That's been a huge change for me.
Had a few moments of freak-out over the weekend. A few OW thoughts. I need to become better at thought-stopping! Some paranoia that things with H would never change or that he was completely lying to me. I calmed myself down by reminding myself that even if that worse case scenario was true that I would be strong enough to move past it. Crazy mind games.
Back in the office today. Hopefully things will be slow but not too slow . That's when my mind misbehaves.
Weds. night my H went out with a mf he met through me. He and mf hit it off very well. Mf has a great outlook on life, very positive, and actually more mature (he's quite younger than H and I) than some of H's other friends.
H went out straight from work and I was asleep by the time he returned. For most of the evening I was fine, got a lot done, relaxed and did some work. However, H's going out, infrequent as it is these days, still triggers in me an anxiety. Pre-bomb H would be out 5-6 nights a week and I would sit around and wait for him to come home getting more and more frustrated as the evening went on. So, although this time I know where H is and who he is with, I am still getting over what it used to be like and it's a painful reminder.
The next morning I was kind of distant. H asked what was wrong and I said "nothing". Now this goes against what H and I have agreed to do but there simply wasn't the time to go into how I was feeling and I didn't want to say "Well there is something I have on my mind but let's wait until after work when I have the time to go into it." This would drive H crazy and it was his day off! Instead I played it as I was running late and the acted "as if" the rest of the time we were together.
Later that evening, after dinner I said to H that I wanted to share why I was "off" in the AM. I told him that even though things have changed between us greatly, I am still from time to time affected by memories of the past. I told him how painful it was for me to sit at home every night and not know where he was or with whom. I said that I appreciate very much the changes he has made to this end and that he is working on being more honest. I said that intellectually I know that things ahve changed but emotionally it will take me a while to come up to speed. I asked him to be patient and to continue what he was doing. That is telling me the truth even if it was something he thought might upset me. He asked if I thought he was lying to me last night about where he was and I said no I didn't think you were. I said that I was upset because it reminded me of the old situation and that during this process of change flashbacks are going to occur. He then said "well I'm not involved in anything that would make you upset." I said that I didn't think that he was, all I was asking is that he tell me the truth regardless if it might be painful, whatever it was related to.
I let the convo go after that. I didn't ask him what his thoughts were or if it upset him or any of the many enabling ways I have of undermining myself. I let it go because it wasn't accusatory of me in anyway, I was being completely honest without placing blame and it let my H know how it used to be for me and that I believe that we are continuing to change. It felt really good to do this!
So here comes the weird dream. Last night, I dreamt that I ran into OW while working on a project. OW and I had to work together and she and I were trying to reach a point of understanding. It ended with me shaking her hand! How weird is that?! I don't see this happening in real-life but it's interesting to me that it's entered my sub-concious.
Anyway, I made a list of things that I am grateful for in 2005. It's a top 20 list and my first three are: 1. Hard choices, 2. The chance to correct my mistakes, 3. Reconciling with H (see 1&2). It's a public list on my blog page, so I couldn't add- Divorce Busting. I am so grateful to have found DB and this BB. Thanks to everyone who has offered advice and support this year!
Have a great New Year's and here's to a wonderful 2006!
Anyway, my fear is that H doesn't have the motivation to become more intimate and that I enable him not changing! I DO NOT want a life for myself where I am giving and giving and H only meets me halfway. Problem is I am deeply in love with H and it's my nature to want to give a lot. 