All Hope is lost/Help - Part 2

[Jen_Jam]

Hi E

Glad you decided to do the holiday - it will give your H a chance to see what he's missing and it'll be nice to be together as a family - again, giving H a chance to see what he's missing!

But one word of warning - go with NO expectations. This holiday won't cure anything, but it CAN count as a step towards it.

Your plan to be yourself is spot on - you can't be anything else

OK - childcare .... perhaps your H would prefer to be approached as part of the solution, at the moment it looks as if you're viewing him as the problem (which he may well be, but it won't do you any favours to in any way show you think this). Something along the lines of "H, while we're on this break I'd like to do xxxx, and I'm sure there are things you'd like to do. What do you suggest WE do to make sure WE all have a good time?" (note the stress on the we. Contract this with "H, while we're on this break I want to do xxx, YOU will have to look after the kids a bit, I am not prepared to do it all the time".)

In this way, between you you can come up with some kind of plan ... but the trick is to make it NOT look like a plan .. if you can get out of him say one evening and one afternoon to yourself this will be a baby step.

I'd also have a good long think about how you want to approach this week. One of my gurus here, SDFound Girl, had a good tip - imagine what kind of day/week you want, visualise it, then it usually happens. Remember the only control you have is over yourself, and you are fully responsible for your own happiness and not that of others.

In my sitch, my H felt terrible guilt at what he'd done too. I realised each time I looked upset it brought that guilt up to the surface. This is where my GAL activities and just liking myself came in SO handy - H didn't see me looking upset, so it took away his reason to feel guilty. The attitude I put over was "well, while you make up your mind what you want to do I'm going to enjoy myself, and if you're daft enough to D me then it's your loss!". I still firmly believe that to this day - if my H walks, his loss. I'm pretty darned wonderful and a darned good wife to him. That confident stance can be very attractive to men too....

OK, this post is a bit all over the place, wat I'm really trying to say is go with no expectations, but watch for baby steps. if you have expectations you can miss the baby steps. be yourself, be wonderful, elegant and charming, show H what he is missing. If you want some time to yourself, say so. Ask H "would you ...?". Then whatever he replies, it's all no big deal. if he says yes, it's still no big deal. Smile, say thanks and then go off and enjoy yourself. Stay pleasant, polite and cheerful and you will be fine