i haven't been on here in a while, at least, not with my own thread. i've been doing what i did in the beginning; lurking, a few comments here and there, hoping to help.
it was one year ago today that my H told me he wanted to D. it was so hard and i was devastated. i've been through all kinds of ups and downs, as some of you on here may remember. however, i think i'm in a much better place now that i would have been had this not happened to me.
my H is courting me and talking about R. i am hesitant, to say the least. he's not fully committed and is still living at his mom's, or at least, has most of his clothing there. he works out of town for five months out of the year.
i lost my mother this month and that motivated me to tell him that his reluctance to fully commit to me and a marriage with me, and to put our relationship before all others, was wasting my time. i advised him to leave me alone because i was no longer a member of his family.
really, either sh!t or get off the pot. also, i'm not sure he's the right man and partner for me. he has really enjoyed a pretty one-sided marriage and i don't think he would be able to give that up.
i told him all this, that i can't do this anymore, that i can't be married to an absentee "husband" who wants to live and spend most of his time with other people. i told him we don't have a marriage and maybe it's enough for him but not for me. i told him i love him but eventually, i wouldn't if things went back to where i didn't matter.
then he sent me a picture of a poster that said, "nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending." HA! that's one of the lines i sent him soon after BD! i had to laugh.
i had written, soon after BD, 16 different "papers" on all the things he, his family, and especially, his kids had done to me and all that i had done FOR them over the course of 16 years. what started me on this was his revisionist history of me and our marriage together. after the bomb, i was never any good and we never had any good times, in his mind.
i began to list all the good things i did for them because i NEEDED to know. well, things just came pouring out. i vented all my pain and anger and frustrations on those pages.
yesterday, when he told me he wanted us to be together, i thought, maybe it's time to let him read all this so he can know how i was hurt and what it was like to be a member of his "family" and then to be kicked out and ignored.
so...i emailed them all to him today! what do i have to lose? i already know that, if things don't change and we have a more mutually satisfying marriage, without the intrusion of his adult kids always coming before our relationship, i don't want to be married to him anyway! i'm happy with my life now. i do what i want. i see my grandkids when i want and don't feel like i'm neglecting him. i go where i want. i don't cook when i don't want to. i have the entire walk-in closet, all to myself (i saw this on another thread and it truly is wonderful).
i can survive on my finances alone. i'm still fairly attractive and enjoy men very much. my family is happy to have me around. life is good. it's good to have options and to feel safe. it's good to finally be good enough...for me!
my mother died at 84. her mother and father both died at 84, also. i'm under no illusions that i have all the time in the world left to me. i plan to make the best of it. i hope and pray that all of you who are out there and afraid of what your life will be like if you don't remain with your partner, will find the peace and contentment that i have. i'm even excited about my future, with or without my H. i know it will be better because i'm caring and protecting myself now.
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
SS, i love to read your posts and your strength is such an example to me. i am so so sorry about the loss of your mother (((((((((((((((((((((ss)))))))))))))))
Me(f): 51 W: 41 DP:8 M:3 T:10 "W not happy" 7/11 D final: 8/13
well, H is coming over friday to discuss our lives going forward. i advised him i was looking for a place to move to that i could afford after a divorce and still keep our condo in my hometown.
he cried. we talked. he wants to stay married. i really would want to stay married, too, if it meant our marriage comes before his mother and kids (and mine, too). we'll talk and see what we can work out. he said he read all of my emailed papers to him that i wrote when i was in the lowest points of our break up.
i won't accept a marriage where i have to continue to sacrifice for his family and kids. i think i made that clear. i'm cautiously optimistic...
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
TPS Me: 44 H: 42 M14 T17 S10 D7 10/10 H moves out after death of his father-same month 21/04/12 H is 'DONE' 04/05/12 OW/PA confirmed (rumors from 2010) July '14 H ends affair May '15 H moves back home
i'm not even remotely there. my W and i have kids together and all i can think of is wanting to bring them up with her, my best friend. sounds like you are no longer depending on him for a safe emotional connection.
thank you vero and busting, after talking to H yesterday, i guess i sounded a little too happy about maybe having a christmas together. he did not text me last night and has not this morning.
i waited until 10 pm to send him this email:
"H, i know we agreed to "talk" on friday. i also said that i didn't have a present for you for christmas and maybe we could go shopping after christmas for gifts for each other. you seemed kind of reluctant. i sense a pulling back from you whenever i move towards you. it's been, in my opinion, a cat-and-mouse game and it has left me very tired. i can't continue to play games. you leave me, i pursue you, i think i'm done, you pursue me, i feel a move towards reconciliation on your part and i move towards you, you pull back. i'm sure this shows that you have some very severe doubts about a life with me and a future with me. i understand that and sympathize.
however, i'm too mature to go through this anymore. i'm not afraid of new beginnings and new opportunities for happiness. at times, i actually look forward to them and starting over. do i want to stay married to you? some days, yes, some days, no. would it be easier to stay married? maybe from a financial point of view and from a freedom of all the hassles. but i'm not afraid of them, not entirely. i'm a little worried about how we would be towards each other in a divorce but not enough to stay married and be unhappy. and certainly not enough to continue with things as they are. there seems to be a big power struggle going on here for you but, that's just my opinion.
i worry about being able to trust you. you have treated me cruelly in the past. you have taken money from me. you have put others before me many times. can you be different? i'm really scared about that more than anything. i don't want to be in this same place two, three, five years from now with more of my life wasted when i could have been over all this and maybe have a new life of happiness with someone else.
i won't play games anymore. please read what i need in a mate again, please, and truly think it through and decide if it's really what you are or are capable of. there's no shame in admitting that you're not for me. not everyone can be right for another person. if you're not right for me then, it stands to reason that, i'm not right for you. we may have been right for each other once but things and people change. some people don't want things to change.
i wrote this paper after i got back from (my hometown) in august. it was the day of our 15th anniversary when i made my appointment with the third lawyer. i gave him his retainer on my mastercard. he was the most reasonable. my appointment was on friday, the 31st. i hired him for a collaborative divorce. he took all the information and dictated a letter to be written by his secretary. it was to go out by the following wednesday, sept. 5th.
i called the secretary on that wednesday to see if it had gone out. she said it was on the other secretary's, "things-to-do pile", and that it would be done soon. the very next day, in the morning, i got the email from you, asking what i might need in a mate. i immediately called and sent an email to the attorney to stop the letter. they refunded the retainer because they really hadn't done anything for me other than the consultation.
i stopped the letter and the process because i thought there was a chance for us to make it and that you may have changed your mind about divorcing me. you had been so adamant about not loving me and not wanting to be with me. you did not want to live with me at (our home) and had decided to live with your mother, "for now". i told you i had to move on. i could not stay in this "limbo" of a relationship any longer. your email to me made me think differently.
however, i'm seeing a pattern here of pursue, distance, pursue, distance. please, please stop this. please let me go or come home and let's work on our marriage. if you want to give up on it, i can honestly handle it. i'm ready now. i've made some plans and i can make it. it won't be the easiest thing to do but it also won't be the hardest. this unknown thing is the hardest for me. i don't have the network and activity of family to live with and friends to work with that you have in your life. i can have it but a lot of it is in (my hometown) so i need to make more of my life up there.
if you want to end it, then this attachment is still what i want and need. some of it has already been settled, i think, pertaining to the financial support of your kids. some of the figures for the (vacation condo) will need updating.
you told me today that when i asked you to think about moving back to (our home) while in was in (my hometown) in august, that you felt i was "telling you what to do". i told you then that the reason i wanted you to think about it was that i couldn't continue with things as they were. and here we are, still continuing with them as they have been; you at your mother's with your family and kids around, me at (our home), alone. i'm not going to do this anymore, no matter what we talk about on friday, if you still want to come and talk. i'm not talking in circles anymore. i told you we've already said pretty much everything there is to say. if we stayed together, we would need to start negotiations about what we want and don't want to live with.
i know you like control. i feel you have been controlling my life for a year now. a person needs to have control over their own life. i have to have it now. i won't be abandoned for another christmas. this is not an ultimatum. this is just me letting you know how i have to be treated to even think about a relationship. please do what makes you comfortable.
let's just get this over with, one way or the other. you will have to commit to something now. it's been a year and that's long enough. if i were in my 30's, it might be different. we are not so young anymore.
SS p.s. i'm waiting until 10 pm to send this. for the past few weeks, you would text me sometime in the evening. now that you feel me "pushing" ("telling you what to do" by being happy about maybe being married again, happy about doing things with you, living together, doing some christmas shopping together, etc.), you are pulling back and not contacting me. that's the pattern. so, i'm giving you the benefit of the doubt by waiting because i'm hoping it's not more of the same. you've claimed to be vulnerable but you are very guarded, much more so than i am. people can't be together like that. it's not being authentic."
so, we'll see what happens.
M:63 H:53 S:41, SS:28, SS:25, SD:23 M:15 T:16
Bomb:12/17/11, "I think we should go our separate ways." H moves to his mother's house, 4/1/12 12/21/12: H moves back home, piecing
SS, your post really resonates with me. I too came to a place where I was just done waiting for W and done with the lack of progress, lack of interest and general lack of respect from W. Some people can tolerate it for years while waiting to reconcile, but not me. So I moved on and started dating (I know, not DB'ing for sure). Now W is suddenly pulling closer, she actually initiated a hug about a week ago (first time in over 6 months) and there are other small signs. But the difference between your sitch and mine is I am just so over W that I have no interest in pursuing her at all. The baby steps just mean nothing to me anymore when I can see giant leaps in new relationships with a heck of a lot less effort on my part. I let my W destroy my self-worth to the point that I thought I was ugly and worthless. Now that I'm dating I've been really surprised to be told how handsome, buff and smart I am. I don't mean that to sound like boasting, I'm just saying that many of us have been so cut off from affection for so many years that we don't even realize the impact it has had on us psychologically. To suddenly hear things like that again is a revelation that life isn't over after all! I'm not saying that everyone should run out and start dating, but I am saying that ALL of us here are much more valuable then we give ourselves credit for.
wow SS. what a strong post (email). I know its not easy peasy either way, but you display strength and conviction in want you want and what you can and are willing to do.
You are such a lovable and wonderful and beautiful person. You recognize your value and worth, as do we. :-)
Let us know what happens.
((((((SS))))))
TPS Me: 44 H: 42 M14 T17 S10 D7 10/10 H moves out after death of his father-same month 21/04/12 H is 'DONE' 04/05/12 OW/PA confirmed (rumors from 2010) July '14 H ends affair May '15 H moves back home
