I agree with your quote, Lin - it was a knee buckler for me too and yet, I know I'm doing better now than I was for at least a few years there.
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Perhaps instead of being worried or concerned about the changes in behavior, they are annoyed with their husbands and are already thinking of throwing in the towel...before their H's have even gotten up the courage to walk out the door.
That's a thought, Hope; I keep thinking that if divorce was even a blip on my radar as a possibility, I might have been the one to walk - I know my h had so tried to second guess what I wanted (wrongly!) and had emotionally withdrawn so far, that I felt completely pointless in our marriage just before he walked. And like you wrote, Lin, I tried to ask my h months before if anything was wrong and all he would say was "you just don't trust me" - effectively keeping me from pushing any farther.
I wonder with my friends, though, if some of them are going through or beginning their own MLCs. I know that for many women, it is their 40s that brings them to needing a new direction. My mother went to seminary and became an ordained minister when she was 42 - kindof a "holy" MLC!
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I know for me...so many times I thought my marriage was over for good...H kept telling me he was done....that he had been unhappy for too long and he couldn't love me anymore...I refused to believe all of that in my heart...but went on as if it were true...and now here we are...of course it wasn't a light bulb moment on his part to come home...it was gradual...
In the end, your journey, Lin, reflects both my hopes and fears. I am letting myself face the fact that right now, at this moment, my marriage is over, but I also know that until the papers are final, nothing is for certain -- except change. I fear my close confidents - my sister, BFFs, aunt, IC - are getting tired of my inability to not just shut down my heart, but I also know that there's a part of that man who is my H who I love completely. I don't want to lose that prematurely, and I wish for the chance to be with him again in a healthier relationship. My fears ... maybe my challenge ... is the thought of going through the pain of the divorce and then having him and I rebuild; sometimes I want to either work it out or go through with the D, not somewhere in between ... but of course, this isn't all in my control, so I keep hanging on for the ride...
How difficult was it, Lin, to have the reconciliation & piecing together happen after the divorce? Or do you think your relationship needed that break in order to regrow?
Transitions: can't live with them, can't live without them!
