Just wanted to check in. Thanks for your thoughts and insights.
25, others have told me to stay in the business for now, including the DB coach, as it is something that is holding us together still and my "leverage." If there is some finality to this in that we don't work this out, H has expressed an interest in staying in business together, but at this point that is not what I want. At this point, I'm just going to work on only necessary communications on business with him. It's just the two of us in the business, so we don't have an assistant or anyone else to pass info between us.
Also, regarding the deal he made the offer on, he is the one in our business who does all of our marketing and meeting with sellers and striking up the deals. So he was not doing this new deal "on his own." This is the norm for what he always does. Once a deal is in place, I work on all of the details and paperwork and financing and whatnot. So this was the norm, other than he usually tells me more about what he has been looking at and how things are going. He hasn't been doing that, and that's admittedly been really hard. I miss talking with him about those things. I told him yesterday that I was feeling "disjointed" from him with the business and that that was hard...
BTW, I forgot to tell you that he did apologize on Friday for the other night when we had the "difficult" phone conversations. He said he was going to call me later to tell me more about the deal. I asked him what deal, and he said the property WE made the offer on last night. He said he was really tired the night before when we talked. I said "do ya think?" He said he was sorry. At least he recognized that he wasn't being very friendly to me...
Virginia, I did start reading MariS's threads. In fact, I've probably spent 3-4 hours working towards getting current with her situation. I'm in the first week of February now, I think, and am still reading.
Thank you for sending me those links. It's amazing how just by reading someone else's situation and actions that you are able to "see" things so much clearer. I found myself reading her posts and thinking "way to go" or "uh-oh" as appropriate. It's so much harder when you're the one in the middle of it all. I think that helped me for three reasons: one is that looking from the outside in I could see both the positive and negative things she has been doing and, two, it helps me to see that when you're on the inside of a situation, it IS very difficult to see and control all of your actions and emotions and, three, it's also hard for outsiders to understand/know all of the intricacies in one's M and life and that since no one knows our spouses and situations like us, every situation is unique and may require some fine-tuning of what we should be doing.
At any rate, it's been very helpful to read her thread and know both that she's doing great and making great progress (as of February at least) and also that I'm not the only one who backslides and loses it sometimes.
One thing that strongly stood out for me as I was reading her posts was that she was ML to her H when he was still with OW. NO ONE on her thread pointed out that that was not healthy for her either emotionally or physically... She did it many, many more times that I have done, and nobody said anything. Even SHE never said that it bothered her! I had a hard time with that one. Why didn't anyone, including it sounds like the DB coach, say anything about that? Is it because he was giving her more positive signs about their M than mine is/was? When I read that, I felt worried that I shouldn't have said anything to H about him coming home on occasion. Have I created an environment now that he won't feel "safe" coming home to???
Virginia, H's family does not know about our situation; I'm 10000% sure of that. You asked me not to defend the family dinner situation, so I won't, but suffice it to say that that is one of those things that I made a very difficult decision not to go and am very proud of myself and that I have not explained the details thoroughly enough for you to both understand that it had nothing to do with H not mentioning it to me and that it was understood by his family that we would BOTH be there. I feel good about what I did and at your request won't expand on that or defend it but will just say that you don't fully understand what happened or the relationship with him, me, and his family. What I did yesterday took courage and strength, and I feel really good about that.
I won't defend my calling him numerous times the other night about the problems at the job site either. Yes, it was nice to have something to call to check up on him about; I'll admit that. But it was necessary that he have all of the information that I left in the messages; it's as simple as that.
I do believe him when he says he wants to work on us. I know his actions are showing otherwise right now, but I do believe him. I choose to believe him for now until he tells me otherwise. Will I go on like this forever? Nope. But I'm not at the breaking point yet. Will keep working on me and figuring out all I am supposed to learn from this. Have to end this M, as you said, and begin a new me and a new M for him to come home to. Will keep fighting and will keep choosing to see the glass as half full that he DOES want our M; it helps me to keep a PMA going.
Last night I went to see the movie and had a nice time. Afterwards, though, I broke down in gut-wrenching tears on the drive home. It's the first time in weeks that I've gotten that upset. I found myself thinking about the loss I'm feeling and how ridiculous this whole thing is and how I just want some peace. I guess I let it get the best of me. Maybe it was good that I let it out.
Got home and read some more of MariS's posts for a couple of hours and was exhausted and went to sleep easily. I slept better last night than I have in weeks. Was able to sleep in this morning, too, which was nice.
Today is bitter sweet. I woke up this morning and put on my lounge clothes and was excited to do some housework and get a lot of paperwork done for the business. I was look forward to a productive day. I've gotten quite a bit done already. The hard part is that H is not racing today, and it's a beautiful day outside, so I'm fighting thoughts of thinking he is hanging out with her today. It's hard to block out the thoughts, and I'm doing my best. I just have to remember that this is but a comapratively short period in my life that I won't be with him and that the future has so much in store for us... Must hang on to those thoughts and relax.
Have decided not to go to the job site at all today and just spend the day at home working and getting caught up on some things around the house. I know if I go to the job site and H is not there, which I don't expect him to be, that it will poke me in the heart, and I just don't want to put myself through that. Need to avoid those situations to keep getting stronger. The weekends are really hard...
Am still planning on going dark this week. There are some business things we will have to discuss, but will work on either sending e-mails or recording phone messages to send to him without calling. I feel good about at least mentally coaching myself to do this but am really sad. That sense of loss inside me that I can't explain very well is still really strong. I just feel like each minute is hurting me more and pushing my heart farther away from him... Hard to explain.
Will continue to work on no R/M/OW talk and no pressure. I do feel good about standing up to him a little yesterday but know I also said/did some things I shouldn't have in conjuction with that.
V, GALing has not been so good. I need to get back at that again. Will keep you posted.
Well, I was a bit deflated after reading all of your posts today, so I think I will end this by focusing on the positives of both me and our situation to help lift my spirits and give me strength to get through this day:
Me 1.) I care about my H and my M and my commitment to both 2.) I've made a lot of signifant changes in my life to better myself and my situation with H 3.) I'm slowly getting stronger 4.) I'm a good person who cares about other people 5.) I have a passion for life 6.) I am honest 7.) I am hard-working 8.) I am well-respected among my friends, family, and business associates 9.) I'm very driven 10.) I'm pretty
M/R/H 1.) H has not filed for D or even talked about it 2.) H does not bring up fights with me or talk about R/M or how unhappy he is 3.) H says he wants to work on our M 4.) H came over twice last week and ML to me 5.) H hugged, kissed, and snuggled with me when we did ML, which is different than how it has been 6.) H is still talking about future business plans with US 7.) H has not moved his stuff out of our home 8.) H is still for the most part kind to me 9.) H was very nice to me at the business meeting we had last week 10.) H has agreed that we need to work on our communication skills when the time is right
