Looks like the end

[haphazard]

Thanks Mrs Cac. It's helped me see that I don't want to my your mum in 30 years time (or even 20 the way things are going).

Last night H texted me to say he would be home late "going to be late, kiss the kids, love you" was the message. This was at 5.45 in the afternoon when Tuesday is normally a night he comes home early and does stuff with the kids and puts them to bed.

I was on the phone to my sister when the message came, and she gave me a big pep talk which was helpful. I'd just been reading alot on the internet about PA behaviour. Every word fits him to a tee. Mind you I can see I have traits of it myself.

So I texted back to say "I was hoping to talk to you tonight, but I'll just have to email you instead". Thinking that I would finally just send that email I nearly sent last week. He phoned to ask what I wanted to talk about. The kids were milling around so I couldn't be very explicit. He didn't get it so I finally shut the door and said "I want to talk about whether I want to stay married to you".

He finally came home about 9.00. We had the talk, I told him I felt like our lives were falling apart around us and that we were just getting in each other's way. That we needed to separate just so we could know if we could make it on our own. After a bit of toing and froing he agreed but didn't agree with my idea that we could just live under the same roof for a while to sort out the arrangements and do Christmas as planned. He thought I was crazy to even contemplate it. I told him I felt like we were living as two separate people anyway, and I didn't feel like it would make that much difference. I'm living day in day out with the feeling that I'm not loved and I shouldn't be in this marriage and just getting on with living that lie for the sake of the kids, so why would it make any difference whether that's out in the open or not? It's still the same feeling.

We were very open with each other and didn't even get angry at all once. I didn't tell him to go to AA. Maybe I should have but from what I read you can't tell someone to go. Maybe I'm wrong here? Lil?

His last line of defence against separating was that he wouldn't play ball about Christmas, he would just phone his parents and tell them it's all off. When I said I hoped we could stay as part of an extended family and that I would hope we could visit together and have weekends together from time to time he said "so you don't want me you just want me to be around when it's convenient". I said no that wasn't the reason that it was for the kids that I would want them to have time with their grand-parents and the odd time when all four of us were together.

His solutions just seemed like more of the same, more "lets just try to be nice to each other". So I said I couldn't do that anymore that we need to be much more radical and that the only way I could see to be radical was to separate. He didn't come up with any bright ideas of his own.

We talk a bit about the L word. He feels it's fundamental to his being to feel in love with someone and the cold harsh reality of knowing I don't feel that way about him would just make him too miserable to stay under the same roof with me. I told him that for me love has never been a constant or given thing, it ebbs and flows like the tide. When the tide is out I just say it anyway in the hopes that I can get back to feeling the way I do when the tide is in. It amazes me that he can use a word like "in love" I don't know what he's talking about. I don't feel like I'm around someone who's "in love" with me. And how can he not have felt that I haven't felt that way about him much for a very long time. Maybe he thinks if he can be in love and not really show it then I can too.

We talked about the IUD problem too, about how totally let down and upset I felt that he had put up with this problem for so long all the while making me feeling undesirable and just willingly discarding the best part of our M. He said "second best" then said "first best is being in love". I'm sorry that makes me want to puke. And if that makes me a seriously mixed up chick then I'm a seriously mixed up chick.

I didn't let the L word out of my mouth, I know I don't feel it so why say it, even in that namby pamby "I love you like a brother" way. I know now deep down that I Love You has meant "don't leave me".

We seem to have moved to a different page. We've cut past some of the crap that has been getting in the way of communicating. He actually said "we need to be more emotionally honest with each other" hallelujah! This puppy-dog in love stuff is seriously irritating me though, what's the point of moon-light and roses if you can't come through for someone when they need you? It's just adolescent stuff - still.

I could ramble on I guess forever. The state of play seems to be that Christmas is still on and that we are talking turkey (!) with each other. More turkey needed and less tinsel.

Fran