I probably should have called my friend from LI last night. I was just so out of control, and embarrassed / don't want to keep dumping on her...she'd kick my a$$ to hear me say that, though... even my cousin... But I don't think I would have even been coherent. It really drives home the PA love language that I need, I guess. For someone so verbal, I'm a bit surprised that I need that.
I am going to call the C today, and I have an appt for tomorrow that was already set up.
As far as H being civil; by and large, he really is. His actions have been hurtful, but not directed towards me for the most part (it was his directing his attention elsewhere that hurt). He is polite, we can make small talk and laugh...there is just this underlying...sadness. He says that the worst part of this whole thing, the part that hurts him the most, is that he can't find the love for me anymore. I think he really wanted to, but can't figure out how.
It is such a sad thing.
I miss him so much, and he is right here. I have to see if I can make do with him as a friend. I guess that is the detachment thing, anyway, the DBing principals at work. I wonder sometimes if my heart can take it.
But the alternative, like last night...I don't think I can make it through that. I wish I could be as strong as you are OT...I just don't know if it is in me. I don't know which is in myself--the love or the need, first. It seems a bit like the chicken and the egg, coexisting at the same time.
I think I am going to ask him to write up what he thinks the "committment to the family but not the marriage" would look like. And I'll write up the boundaries I think I would need, see if we can try that for a while. He keeps saying that it is not about meeting someone else, that he doesn't want to get his heart broken again. I believe that... maybe this whole thing is about him trying to find his own independence, breaking free from the limits he thought came from me but really came from within himself. I would not have denied him living his life, doing what made him happy.
But maybe I did that, just by suggestion. Asking him to drive carefully and wear a seatbelt. Being hurt / insecure about other women. I don't know...I guess that there are limits / compromises to make when you are married, and he felt stifled?
Again, trying to decifer something when it really doesn't matter anymore. He has to take his life into his own hands. Maybe I was in the driver's seat for too long, unknowingly. Let him lead...
Last night showed me that I need to be near him, at least. I need to have someone to hold me sometimes; its not as a lover (although I will / do miss that part of my life), but something deeper--knowing that I am not alone in the world.
It all sounds so pathetic and weak when I write it out, but I don't know how else to deal with it.
Staying together in the same house will keep us in each other's lives, financially secure for ourselves and the kids, keep up the team work in managing a home and family, and have someone close who at least cares. There is love between us, if not romantic love. I just need to set him free. Maybe I will find a freedom of my own, too. Free and committed? Wonder what that will look like...
Anyway, I find myself grateful for all of you again. As crazed as I may be at times, I can only imagine it being a thousand times worse if I only had this rolling around in my head, not able to share it with people who know...
